After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  While untold thousands of Haitians arrived: Because of the lack of documentation, the actual number is hard to ascertain. In 1971, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier ascended to the presidency. Because he was a US ally, American border policies were more lenient with earlier waves of Haitian arrivals—many of whom were part of the educated or wealthy classes in the beginning—than they were with later groups who were actively fleeing Baby Doc. For further reading, see Gil Loescher and John A. Scanlan, “Human Rights, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Haitian Refugees,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, vol. 26.3 (August 1984): 313–56; María Cristina García, Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1954–1994 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); and Jake Miller, The Plight of Haitian Refugees (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1984).

  While family reunification had been: See Philip E. Wolgin, “Family Reunification Is the Bedrock of U.S. Immigration Policy,” Center for American Progress website, February 12, 2018: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2018/02/12/446402/family-reunification-bedrock-u-s-immigration-policy/.

  And as resettlement demographics shifted: Carly Goodman, “For 50 years, Keeping Families Together Has Been Central to U.S. Immigration Policy. Now Trump Wants to Tear Them Apart,” The Washington Post, December 17, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/17/for-50-years-keeping-families-together-has-been-central-to-u-s-immigration-policy-now-trump-wants-to-tear-them-apart/?utm_term=.d5822da26a38: “Family unity was a strong shared value that transcended partisan and ideological divides, despite its different interpretations and meanings to different people. And with a few tweaks over the years, the family immigration framework created in 1965 remains at the core of U.S. immigration admissions today.”

  The US continued the resettlement: See Steven J. Gold, “Soviet Jews in the United States,” The American Jewish Year Book, 94 (1994): 3–57.

  But the group that defined US resettlement: See particularly the overview of Hmong culture and refugee situation in Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctor, and the Collision of Two Cultures (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).

  The Laotian civil war in 1974: See Lydia DePillis, Kulwant Saluja, and Denise Lu, “A visual guide to 75 years of major refugee crises around the world,” The Washington Post, December 21, 2015: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/historical-migrant-crisis/.

  Despite the fact that the American public: Sixty percent of people in a Gallup poll taken in January 1973 “thought sending US troops to Vietnam was a mistake,” and in March 1973, only 32 percent expressed “a great deal of confidence” in the American military leadership. See Tom Rosentiel, Jodie T. Allen, Nilanthi Samaranayake, and James Albrittain, Jr., “Iraq and Vietnam: A Crucial Difference in Opinion,” Pew Research Center website, March 22, 2007: http://www.pewresearch.org/2007/03/22/iraq-and-vietnam-a-crucial-difference-in-opinion/.

  The Vietnam War: Chapter 4, “Flight from Indochina,” The State of the World’s Refugees 2000: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action, UNHCR website, January 1, 2000: https://www.unhcr.org/3ebf9bad0.pdf.

  The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act: Drew Desilver, “Executive Actions on Immigration Have Long History,” FactTank: News in the Numbers for the Pew Research Center, November 21, 2014: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/21/executive-actions-on-immigration-have-long-history/.

  Rather than being fed up: Jacqueline Desbarats, “Indochinese Resettlement in the United States,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 75, no. 4 (1985), 522.

  By 1992, that number: “The Largest Refugee Resettlement Effort in American History,” International Rescue Committee website, July 28, 2016: https://www.rescue.org/article/largest-refugee-resettlement-effort-american-history.

  If the numbers of people resettled: According to a Gallup poll taken in 1979, when asked if Indochinese refugees would be generally welcomed in their neighborhood, 57 percent of people answered that they would. And when asked if they would personally like to see Indochinese refugees in their community, 47 percent of people said they would, compared to 40 percent who would not. See Frank Newport, “Historical Review: Americans’ Views on Refugees Coming to the U.S.,” Pew Research Center website, November 19, 2015: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/186716/historical-review-americans-views-refugees-coming.aspx.

  Human rights groups: See especially the excellent book The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s, edited by Jan Eckel and Samuel Moyn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).

  John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps: Peace Corps: Tenth Annual Report (Washington, DC: Peace Corps, 1971): https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED209551.pdf.

  Membership in Amnesty International: Amnesty International Annual Report 1969–1970 (Amnesty International, 1970): https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/001/1970/en/.

  Human Rights Watch began in 1978: See “History,” Human Rights Watch website: https://www.hrw.org/history.

  “Our moral sense dictates”: “Carter and Human Rights, 1977–1981,” Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations blog, Office of the Historian website: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/human-rights.

  In 1979, the Carter administration: See especially David A. Martin, “The Refugee Act of 1980: Its Past and Future,” The Michigan Journal of International Law 93 (1982): 91–123, and George Packer, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (New York: Knopf, 2019).

  A refugee in the United States: Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102 (1980).

  The trauma that resettlement agencies: See “Complex Trauma Disorder,” The Center for Treatment of Anxiety and Mood Disorders website, September 15, 2018: http://centerforanxietydisorders.com/complex-trauma-disorder/; Susannah Radstone, “Trauma Theory: Contexts, Politics, Ethics,” Paragraph 30, no. 1, 2007: 9–29; and Devon E. Hinton and Byron J. Good, Culture and PTSD: Trauma in Global and Historical Perspective (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). I’m especially indebted to Joanna Mendez, Community Wellness Counselor at Refugee Services of Texas (interview with the author, April 18, 2018).

  There were all the normal bureaucratic hurdles: See Andrea Freiberger, “The United States’ Response to Humanitarian Refugee Obligations: Inconsistent Application of Legal Standards and Its Consequences,” Washington University Journal of Law and Policy 33 (2010), 297–327.

  CHAPTER 21

  We waited for a full day: The small trucks used for transporting goods across the country, smaller versions of the eighteen-wheelers we have in the US.

  I cannot do this alone: Drawn verbatim from Laila’s WhatsApp messages and translated by Amena. Her words have been lightly condensed and edited for clarity, but otherwise this section is entirely in her own words.

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 23

  Worldwide, the number of acts of genocide increased: See Samantha Powers, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

  Lawmakers’ lofty language: In following the rhetoric of American identity in relation to refugee resettlement, I’m glossing over many of the larger immigration policies and controversies that raged in those years, such as Ronald Reagan’s amnesty bill in 1986; George H. W. Bush’s 1990 Family Unity Program; and Bill Clinton’s hard-line immigration policies beginning in 1996, among many others.

  He called it: “Farewell Address to the Nation,” President Ronald Reagan, January 11, 1989, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/011189i.

  In a September 11, 1990, address: “Address before a Joint Session of Congress,” President George H. W. Bush, September 11, 1990: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/september-11-1990-address-joint-session-congress.

  In Clinton’s remarks: Li
nda D. Kozaryn, “Clinton Salutes U.S., Allied Troops,” for the U.S. Department of Defense website, June 23, 1999: http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=42798.

  While it did not approach: See Chauncy D. Harris and Gabriele Wülker, “The Refugee Problem of Germany,” Economic Geography 29, no. 1 (1954): 10–25. As this contemporary article makes clear, the number “60 million” is an estimate of the number of displaced persons; as the guidelines and registration process for refugees solidifies in the twentieth century, there will be a distinct difference between the exact number of registered refugees in any country and the estimation of “persons of concern.”

  In 1951, the first year: This interactive chart of the UNHCR Population Statistics Database is incredibly helpful: “UNHCR Statistics—The World in Numbers,” UNHCR website: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview. This number does not differentiate between “refugees” and “persons of concern” (see note above).

  By 1960, that number fell: All numbers in this section are from “UNHCR Historical Refugee Data,” UNHCR website: http://data.unhcr.org/dataviz/.

  But by 1980, the global number: Those numbers included people who were internally displaced—and therefore not eligible for aid or resettlement because they were still within their countries—in addition to those who crossed borders to flee persecution or war. Under Brazil’s military government, 24,000 were internally displaced. In Ethiopia, the country with the most refugees in the world in 1980, the country had 2,567,990 refugees throughout the world, including 10,930 internally displaced people. See Catherine Dauvergne, The New Politics of Immigration and the End of Settler Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 42.

  By 1982, it was set at 142,000: Figures for US resettlement ceilings in this paragraph are from “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and the Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980–Present,” Migration Policy Institute website: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-annual-refugee-resettlement-ceilings-and-number-refugees-admitted-united.

  The global refugee numbers: See “How Draconian Are the Changes to the US Asylum Law? A Monthly Time Series Analysis (1990–2010),” Human Rights Quarterly, 37, no. 1 (2015): 153–87.

  On September 14, Bush issued: “Proclamation 7463—Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks,” issued on September 18, 2001, has been renewed every year since the George W. Bush administration by both Presidents Obama and Trump: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2001-09-18/pdf/01-23358.pdf.

  Hate crimes increased: The FBI recorded 93 assaults against Muslims in 2001, and then the numbers stayed in the 30s to the 50s until 2015, when they reported 91 assaults, and 2016, when there were 127 according to Katayoun Kishi, “Assaults Against Muslims in U.S. Surpass 2001 Level,” FactTank: News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center website, November 15, 2017: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-surpass-2001-level/.

  There should be no intimidation: “Remarks by the President of the United States at the Islamic Center of Washington D.C.,” September 17, 2001. A pdf of the remarks is available at https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html.

  The US attacks on Afghan soil: George Monbiot, “Folly of Aid and Bombs,” The Guardian, October 9, 2001: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/oct/09/1.

  On November 21, President Bush: Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate, 204.

  Most of the allotted slots: “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and the Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980–Present,” Migration Policy Institute website: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-annual-refugee-resettlement-ceilings-and-number-refugees-admitted-united.

  The number of refugees: Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate, 205.

  It was illegal, however: The growing fear that rose after 9/11 led to a sharp decrease in the number of people receiving asylum. In American border states, the fear that terrorists would infiltrate the border routes morphed with anti–undocumented immigrant language. The 2003 Homeland Security Act restructured immigration in a number of crucial ways under the Department of Homeland Security, including creating a new agency, US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). The restructuring led to immigration enforcement falling more clearly into the jurisdiction of the same agencies concerned with national security. See Andrew I. Schoenholtz, “Refugee Protection in the United States Post–September 11,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 36 (2005), 323–64: https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/564/.

  In the first part: Figures in this paragraph come from Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 53.

  A word in the Somali language: Maggie Fick, “In Kenyan Refugee Camp, Hope of New Life in U.S. Fades and Suicide Rate Rises,” Reuters, April 9, 2018: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-refugees-usa-somalia/in-kenyan-refugee-camp-hope-of-new-life-in-u-s-fades-and-suicide-rate-rises-idUSKBN1HG0YW.

  The average length of stay: Betts and Collier, Refuge, 53.

  A UNHCR report: Those refugees were trapped in camps “in the world’s poorest and most unstable regions,” their conditions “frequently the result of neglect by regional and international actors.” The cost was high: “The consequences of having so many human beings in a static state . . . include wasted lives, squandered resources and increased threats to security,” according to “The State of the World’s Refugees 2006: Human Displacement in the New Millennium,” UNHCR website, April 20, 2006: https://www.unhcr.org/publications/sowr/4a4dc1a89/state-worlds-refugees-2006-human-displacement-new-millennium.html.

  While the US attempted to frame: The Pentagon doesn’t keep statistics on civilian deaths and there is a great deal of divergence about the number of civilians dying. See especially “The Iraq War: 2003–2011,” The Council on Foreign Relations website: https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war.

  In May 2006, Secretary of State: Because of the provision in the Refugee Act of 1980 that stated that a refugee could not be someone who “ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,” many of the refugees fleeing the conflict in Myanmar had been barred from resettlement to the United States. The US waived this provision for this specific conflict under international and domestic pressure from refugee advocates, who argued that people who had defended themselves against ethnically targeted violence were not “inciting or assisting” persecution, they were resisting it. The Bush administration’s change in tack opened the door to people in one of the most dire and protracted refugee situations in the world. For more information, see “Rice Allows Myanmar Minority to Seek Asylum,” NBC News, May 5, 2006: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/12649433/ns/us_news-security/t/rice-allows-myanmar-minority-seek-asylum/#.XG6PNS3MzUI, and the speech by then–assistant secretary of state Ellen Sauerbrey, at the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, September 16, 2006: https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/prm/rls/2006/72316.html. Sauerbrey states, “The Karens had been declared ineligible for asylum because the Homeland Security Department determined they had ‘provided material support’ to the Karen National Union, a 58-year-old resistance group opposed to central government control.”

  First Lady Laura Bush: “Burma: A Human Rights Disaster and Threat to Regional Security,” Bureau of Public Affairs Fact Sheet, Washington, D.C., September 19, 2006: https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/scp/2006/72840.htm.

  The Rohingya Muslim refugees: See Patrick Winn, “The Biggest Group of Current Refugees in the US? Christians from Myanmar,” PRI’s The World, May 7, 2017: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-04/biggest-group-refugees-us-christians-myanmar,

  The resettlement of refugees from Myanmar: Bradley Graham, “Immigration Waiver Granted
to Refugees,” The Washington Post, May 5, 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050402062.html.

  CHAPTER 26

  He only raised it: “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and the Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980–Present,” Migration Policy Institute website: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-annual-refugee-resettlement-ceilings-and-number-refugees-admitted-united.

  Under the Obama administration: From “Infographic: The Screening Process for Refugee Entry into the United States,” from the White House of President Barack Obama website, November 20, 2015: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states, among many other sources, including first person interviews.

  At the end of that time: “The Resettlement Process,” Refugee Council USA website: http://www.rcusa.org/resettlement-process.

  This was the point at which: “Written testimony of USCIS Director Francis Cissna for a House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security hearing titled ‘Oversight of the United States Refugee Admissions Program,’” Homeland Security website, October 26, 2017: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/10/26/written-testimony-uscis-director-house-judiciary-subcommittee-immigration-and-border.

  At the end of the Obama administration: Through February 2019, the UNHCR website continued to list 350 affiliate sites, despite the fact that other sources quoted that figure as much less with the closures of many of the local sites (see Chapter 29). “Refugee Resettlement Facts,” UNHCR website, February 2019: https://www.unhcr.org/resettlement-in-the-united-states.html.

  By the end of 2016: “UNHCR Statistics—The World in Numbers,” UNHCR website: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview.

  In 2011, the year the war: See Jasmine El-Gamal, “Trump Is Making the Same Mistakes in Syria That Obama Did in the Middle East,” The Washington Post, December 22, 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/22/trump-is-repeating-obamas-mistakes-syria/?utm_term=.ef16a0954abe; Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt, “Last Convoy of American Troops Leaves Iraq,” The New York Times, December 18, 2011: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/middleeast/last-convoy-of-american-troops-leaves-iraq.html?mtrref=www.google.com.lb&gwh=C7EF213277238BA5BFD621A017D4F332&gwt=pay; and Alice Fordham, “Fact Check: Did Obama Withdraw from Iraq Too Soon, Allowing ISIS to Grow?” NPR, December 19, 2015: https://www.npr.org/2015/12/19/459850716/fact-check-did-obama-withdraw-from-iraq-too-soon-allowing-isis-to-grow.